MBBS graduates will have to execute an indemnity bond of Rs 5 lakh stating they will serve in a public hospital for a year after graduation.

MBBS graduates will have to execute an indemnity bond of Rs 5 lakh stating they will serve in a public hospital for a year after graduation. They will also have to give an undertaking that they will not leave India for five years on acquiring the degree. This is to ensure compliance of the rule that makes a year’s stint in public hospitals mandatory.

A division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice DG Karnik, in the Bombay high court on Tuesday, dismissed five different petitions filed by more than 150 students who had taken admission in 2004-05 and 2005-06 challenging the amendment by the Maharashtra government in 2007 asking them for the Rs 5-lakh bond.

Students who had secured admission in the All India 15% quota in 2004-05 and 2005-06 had challenged the new rule claiming that rules prevalent at the time of their admission should be applicable to them.

Counsels for students, VM Thorat and Pooja Thorat, argued that at the time of their admission in Delhi in the All India quota, they were made to sign a bond saying they would have to pay Rs 1 lakh in case they failed to serve in a public hospital for a year.

“These new rules [the Rs 5 lakh indemnity bond] are for local students under the 85% quota and not for those who take admission under the 15% All India quota,” Thorat argued.